I remember back before I swore off games with microtransactions i was playing one and wanted to buy some in-game currency to support the developer, but it was one of those games with multiple in-game currencies where you buy currency A with real money or sometimes earn small amounts in-game, you buy currency B with currency A at a difficult to calculate exchange rate, and currency C is only purchased with currency B at another difficult to calculate exchange rate, so ultimately it was so heavily obfuscated how many dollars I needed to spend for the small goal I had that I gave up and decided maybe the developer wasn’t worth supporting after all
… World
You are my world fam
The what? OP, the what??? DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS!!!
It’s funny that they would rather handle the EU case differently, rather than give in to the Brussels effect and just show prices everywhere. Just shows how much money this little scam is making them.
I’m sure they have the statistics that tells them how many purchases aren’t being completed once users start seeing the real price. It really puts things into context. 7,50€ for what looks like a lego skin?
From the American POV:
Clear and accurate pricing for digital transactions in a hypercapitalist system?
… believe it or not, ‘socialism’, straight to the antifa terrorist gulag for you.
Christ I hate living here.
come to the EU! 🙂
I’d love to, problem is I am crippled and broke.
Virtual currency that you purchase with real money should have been banned a long, long time ago.
The biggest problem with virtual currency is that they intentionally price it so that you can’t easily determine how much something is.
If they’re charging $50 for 7500 coins and something costs 300 coins, how much are you spending? It’s not easy to know without taking time to do the calculations.
Some games, Path of Exile for example, make it easy to know how much things are even using their currency. 100 points is $10, 200 points is $20… so it’s very easy to figure out that a skin that costs 125 coins costs $1.25.
Most people aren’t buying their virtual currency 1:1 in the path of exile shop, they buy it through FOMO bundles which distorts its value just the same. For example right now you can buy into the early access, but here’s the kicker at 30$ it also comes with 300 points, so what’s the value of the early access or the points?
Path of exile has other positives aspects going for it, you can finish it without spending any money and it’s not P2W, although there’s a pay for convenience buy-in that costs about the same as a regular game. But its micro transactions and virtual currencies are as predatory as everyone else with overpriced items, rotating sales and gambling boxes.
All of the packages always give you points at exactly the $10 = 100 points ratio. You can’t buy points anywhere that is more or less than that. The supporter packs give bonus mtx on top of the points, but if you spend any money you’re getting exactly 10 points per dollar.
PoE definitely has some predatory aspects, but price transparency isn’t one of them. 100 points is always $10 so it’s trivial to understand the actual cost of an mtx. An 80 point item is $8, very transparent.
Compare to Fortnite, where 1000 vbucks is $8.99, so how much is an mtx that costs 1200 vbucks? You need a calculator.
1$ = 10 points only works for dollars, here’s the german version for example, you still need a calculator.
The moment you can buy more shit with the same amount of money it derides the 1 dollar = 10 points. Btw if you buy the more expensive packs you can forego physical items for more poe vbucks.Fair
Might be in USD, but that probably doesn’t translate to other currencies. Either way, they are using it to circumvent laws, refunds etc. They will still be pricing things so you have just under the amount you need, so you have to buy the next package up… then leaving you with too many coins than you needed, but still just short of another item. It’s all predatory and needs to be abolished.
Should get rid of crypto while we’re at it.
I would Like to see you try… How would you bann blockchain tech? The reason why bitcoin exists, believe it or not, is for you. To have an alternative to current world banking, which is screwing us all over with fake valuta. A factional number on your bank account, that is worth whatever the banks say it is. Bitcoin is an alternative to world banking, so we wouldn’t end up in a financial crisis like 2008 again.
Bitcoin was supposed to be an anonymous, secure, digital currency.
If you actually want that, its called monero, not bitcoin, and even it has problems.
Bitcoin, ethereum, all the forks and clones of them with different stupid names?
Not anonymous, not secure.
Oh, right, and they’re all massively tied into that financial/monetary speculation machine that they were supposed to be an alternative to.
Now, you just have a crypto balance that is whatever your coin exchange says it is, untill oops, turns out they were double holding ‘your’ coins in some way, you actually have none, or, a market swing or crash wipes out your ‘store of value’, because you actually invested in a complicated ponzi scheme.
For all the bullshit fraud and dangerous speculation of traditional finance, the crypto space is a million times worse.
Crypto now largely just is a speculative asset.
It never took off as an actual medium of exchange for anything other than basically illegal guns and drugs… its just a new, more insane kind of stock market, a new kind of speculative asset.
Every crypto video game is a fucking joke.
NFTs are a fucking joke.
Everything you dislike about traditional banking and finance?
Crypto is that, but much worse.
The very moment you can get more coins by wasting energy, disk space or “digging” it in any kind of way means that will be used to speculate.
Why?
Bitcoin alone uses more electricity than the entire country of Norway.
It’s a REALLY REALLY wasteful way to do transactions and is terrible for the environment.
Other than that, it’s fueled the black market and illegal business, it doesn’t really have any real world benefits you can’t get from regular banking for the vast majority of people.
One bitcoin transaction is estimated to use between 50 and 700kwh of electricity. Your average dutch household uses ~2000kwh, so ~10 transactions burn more electricity than a whole household.
And to add to how bad that is, Norway is a small country, but we use really, really much energy per capita, since our energy has always been so cheap due to hydro power and politicians in 1905 going all in on that the benefits of our nature should benefit us all. Only in the last few years, prices have aligned more with the rest of the continent, though that price hike is supported for the many by the government, since the continental standard is so foreignly high for us.
Bitcoin is basically a prototype, though. (Some) other cryptos are far more efficient.
The illegal transactions complaint is legit, but there’s cases where that’s not a bad thing.
I get that it’s very nice during a revolution or something like that, but there are also massive downsides and to me it looks like it mostly benefits criminals and people taking advantage of others.
Trump has made a fortune on his shit-coin, it’s a great way for people to get around regulations and hide things they usually wouldn’t get away with.
I’m open to have my opinion changed, it’s just what it looks like to me
I’m not going to directly argue with that, since I don’t have more than a personal guess about if the world needs more technologies of control, or less.
I will point out that that stance leads to a lot of conclusions Lemmy wouldn’t like. Or at least seems like it could. For example, isn’t mass surveillance actually good because it can stop crime? And maybe computer hardware should all be locked down and accessible only with a licence.
Yea I get that argument, and thought Lemmy might feel Crypto = Good (because fuck the system)
I think as with everything it’s not black and white and and needs to be studied properly.
Mass surveillance would stop crime sure, but the price you pay for that is privacy and a concentration of power which will likely be abused. Meaning it’s not worth the price/risk.
What benefits has crypto given us? and are they worth the metric shit-ton of electricity that it uses along with all the crime and dodgy dealings it facilitates?
https://coinshares.com/nl-en/insights/research-data/closer-look-environmental-impact-of-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/26/climate-hero-villain-fossil-fuel-frenzy-challenges-norway-green-image https://www.dw.com/en/norways-big-green-lie/audio-74144534
Bitcoin is a far superior way to control your own finances. Transactions are more transparent helping to prevent corruption for one thing. As long as we let the banks control everything, we will never be able to fix most of the problems causing climate damage. If you are still intent on complaining that Bitcoin is evil, it is a necessary evil. It has unfortunately been adopted by the big companies at this stage so they will benefit immensely from it, but taking everything and the alternatives into account, it should actually help the environment in the long run.
Bitcoin doesn’t have the arbitration that banks can offer. Bitcoin also uses ridiculous amounts of energy, so much so that I don’t think the network could even handle taking over the volume that the banks currently handle. The idea that it is somehow a saviour for the environment is laughable.
I don’t think that anyone claimed it is somehow the saviour for then environment. There is a lot more to bitcoin than was possible to reply.
Sorry but I’m not reading 3 whole articles. (can’t even reject the cookies on some of them)
What does bitcoin solve? And what about risks like you(or your vendor) getting hacked and literally your whole life savings just vanishing into a puff of smoke?
Traditional banks protect you against things like that.
It makes me wonder how you came to your superior opinion when you won’t even read a partial article. I use blockers so I didn’t see any cookie popups etc. (firefox/chrome - Ghostery, privacy badger, ublock origin)
The honest and best answer that I can give is far too long for little old me to be typing out while trying to cover everything. Your vendor getting hacked - Never keep your bitcoin on the exchange.
Not your keys - not your crypto.
The problem you propose there happens today with banks and our identification being cloned. With EU Chat Control attempting to be passed, it has the potential to get 100 times worse for everyone.
I am not being smart, but you should read up on what Bitcoin (not crypto) solves and how it is more secure. There are a plethora of articles out there that don’t require a lot of reading, that you could skim over.
Key points for most articles were you to search “what does bitcoin solve?”
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The Bitcoin blockchain is decentralized, permissionless, and reliable.
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Bitcoin increases access to basic financial services and facilitates cross-border payments.
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The Bitcoin blockchain is open and transparent. Every transaction on the network can be traced.
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Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, imposed a hard-capped supply of 21 million BTC, creating a provably-scarce asset.
I’m on firefox with uBlock, will look into adding the others
I still don’t see what bitcoin solves?
Sure it’s decentralized and transparent and all those things, but how does that benefit us? And is it worth ~5% the household electricity usage per transaction?
You say people shouldn’t keep all their money in an exchange, should they protect it themselves then? People aren’t tech literate and old people will DEFINITELY get scammed out of their crypto.
Someone can break into your house, hold a gun to your head and make you transfer your whole life savings to them. Traditional banks protect against this, you will get your money back if someone does this.
Can I take a mortgage in crypto?
Again, what problems does bitcoin solve? It creates many so it better be something good
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Generally agree but where does that leave us with the system that I think EVE started where can buy an in-game token for £15, redeem it for a month subscription or trade them with other players.
I’m sure they could draft something that allows that sort of thing still. The currency in games like EVE/WoW/RuneScape is technically an in-game item rather than a currency for a storefront.
If that sort of thing would end up being abused, then it’d have to go obviously.
That is the problem I can see though, allowing one allows pushing it too. Games start to sell a shitload of cash shop things with the same method, EVE seems to be trying to do that too last time I played it.
Ban it all then. I’d personally ban all extra transactions in games to be honest, but we can start with removing virtual currency.
I’m on the fence about this one, since some games reward you with premium currency for doing well (looking at the finals). Sure, I suppose they could just give you $1 credit, which is definitely more clear, but it still feels strange. Maybe I’m just too used to in-game currencies
Exactly, they can just give you credit if they want to use that strategy. These games are just designed in such ways to get people to spend as much money as they can. Removing the virtual currencies makes the actual spend much more obvious, reducing the effect it can have.
I think people will still spend a lot as they are far far too comfortable with games just offering skins for $20 now as the norm. It’s disgusting really where we are at with games like this these days. Remember when you just earned a skin through playing the game?
Shit, some games are just winning currency. Look at “social gambling”. It’s just gambling without the ability to win your money back.
There’s an imbalance of power in it.
You can spend $10 for 1000vbucks or whatever. That costs you. There’s no way of you getting those vbucks on demand exactly when you want it.
The game provider on the other hand, can shit out vbucks until the cows come home. Doesn’t cost them a thing.
In some cases, free credits make them money. Heavily discounted credits for your first purchase entices new buyers into breaking the “first purchase barrier”, which drastically makes it easier to sell a second time, even if the price is 10x.
Free credits can also lure players who have had a bad streak back, and back to spending money.
In game currencies exist to detach you from the true cost of playing games, and to give you the feeling of being rewarded with something of value.
This is a huge win against predatory monetization
One more step towards removing shitty in-game currency with awful set bundles and conversion that forces you to spend more than you want to
I don’t really care about the shitshow that is ttye current state of gaming, but even I can see that this is a big win
Sauce? (aka “can someone reference the EU regulation that did this”)
Found it, after some reasearch: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_831
Is this Fortnite? Can you win these points? Otherwise this legislation sort of defeats the purpose of having these points, I think.
That’s not a bad thing, obviously. I just wonder what they will come with next to obfuscate what you’re actually paying.
If you can buy a currency with real money they need to show this. In fortnite its not possible to win these coins (outside of battlepass rewards but these basically just refund your battlepass costs)
You get v bucks in the free battle pass as well.
If you can buy a currency with real money they need to show this.
I understood this.
No idea why I got a downvote. My point is that these points in games primarily serve to obfuscate the actual price of things. That’s why there’s now legislation to prevent this. From the perspective of the devs (or whoever is responsible here), the points then lose their use, though. Unless they still have some other use.
The second effect is gained from having something cost 800V but only allowing you to buy packs of 1000V.
Then you end up with 200V burning in your pocket that you can’t spend. So you buy another 1000V, spend another 800V and now you’re stuck with 400V.
So instead of spending 7.5 euro for 800V you spent 40 euro for 4000V to get to an even 0V left.In the EU, you also have to be able to buy exactly as much as you need
Interesting, these are the only options I get on epic store from Sweden
edit:
As someone who’s never touched Fortnite before I didn’t find the right place to check. I can pay the exact purchase amount needed when checking out an item.
Is that when you pick a specific thing to buy?
There was one game I played where you could buy points ahead of time starting at 1000 for $10 and 2000 for $15 and so on but when you went to buy an item that was 800 points you could also buy it for $8. I think the 1000 for $10 was there to show the higher ones were a better ‘deal’ and if you did buy that way you had the 200 left over dark pattern.
This was in the US and it is the only game I remember doing it that way, and it was long enough ago that I don’t remember which one it was.
You used to have to do that to buy indie games on the Xbox 360. And the points would expire if you didn’t use them in time.
I don’t think they understand that points can be purchased with money at different ratios or even acquired in game without spending money.
As long as they display the value based on the most expensive way to purchase the points I think it is a good think. Especially if you are buying at that time with cash for the points.
While I’m sure it’s done for the sake of maximum engagement\profit, your statement is not quite true. In v bucks terms, a season pass is 950, but you can usually get back around 1500 by getting to level 100 during the season.
You can also get like 400 a season without a battle pass. So if you played for a few seasons, you could get the battle pass for free as well. Then sometimes there’s extra events and bonus v bucks you can earn and stuff. They figured out a long time ago they can make more money for the long term by staying the most popular, and the most popular means keep giving some shit away so it doesn’t get old for the people who don’t spend much, if any money. If they go away, then the people who do spend $$$ will end up moving on as well.
It should count as discounted, not “free money”, because (aside from potential licensing costs) there’s no big fixed expenses per-sale for these items
IIRC, the battle pass has some vbucks for free. Otherwise, Fortnite founders could earn vbucks in Save The World.
Now, I wonder what math they use to show the equivalent price given that you get more vbucks per euro with the more expensive packages. By the looks of it, they use the lowest package for the calculations.
EDIT: Still, the fact that you cant just buy it directly with currency sucks.
I think this is actually showing the price if you buy it directly with currency as another user mentioned that is am EU requirement.
That would mean you can spend 1000 points or pay 7.49
Nah, you need to buy vbucks. I checked.
As you can see I am missing 50 vbucks to get it and only got an option to buy vbucks and no direct option to purchase.
So just old German reload system
with new price display then? At least we all got this system now not just some countriesYour SS from ingame? Because did mine from the web shop and just redirects me straight to the vbucks page to buy.
in-game it redirects to top up page like in old reload systemI see you do have the option to buy the exact amount of vbucks you need , right?
Well that sucks.
Yes, or you could just when I played. In fact you got enough points to pay for the battle pass the next season so in effect you paid once and then didn’t have to pay again if you didn’t buy cosmetics.
